COMPANY NEWS; Bombardier Agrees to Buy De Havilland From Boeing

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Bombardier Inc., the Montreal-based transportation conglomerate, said today that it would acquire the Boeing Company's ailing de Havilland division, a maker of commuter jets and Ontario's largest industrial employer. In the complex deal, valued at nearly $600 million, public authorities will provide nearly $500 million in subsidies.

The Seattle-based Boeing, which paid $155 million for de Havilland in 1986 and has experienced losses totaling nearly $1 billion, will walk away with $100 million.

Bombardier, with $3 billion in annual sales, will pay $51 million for 51 percent of de Havilland's shares and the Ontario government $49 million for the remaining stock. After four years, Bombardier can buy Ontario's shares.

The accord was announced before cheering workers at de Havilland's sprawling plant in Downsview, Ontario, by Bombardier's chairman, Laurent Beaudoin; Premier Bob Rae of Ontario, and the federal Industry Minister, Michael H. Wilson. Workers booed when Boeing's name was mentioned. The plant, with 3,760 employees, down from 6,200 in 1989, is about 20 miles north of Toronto.

"By combining their resources, skills and experience and building on their united strengths," Mr. Beaudoin told the workers, "Bombardier and de Havilland can look forward to achieving a strategic position in the aerospace industry."

The marriage would add two commuter jet lines -- the Dash 8-100 and Dash 8-300 series, seating 37 to 40 passengers each -- to Bombardier's extensive range of turboprops and jets, making the company one of the most varied aerospace manufacturers in the world.

Bombardier, also the leading rail equipment manufacturer in North America, produces a somewhat larger jet that carries 50 to 56 passengers, known as the Canadair Regional Jet. The company also makes Ski-Doo snowmobiles and cars for the New York City subway system.

Still, some analysts wondered how Bombardier might succeed with de Havilland, when Boeing experienced such dramatic failure.

Murray Grossner of Burns, Fry Ltd. said the acquisition would "increase the risk profile" for Bombardier. He said the Dash 8 and the Canadair were competitive, not complementary, aircraft.

Yet Bombardier has confounded critics in the past. It has compiled an enviable record of buying troubled companies with innovative technology at bargain-basement prices, usually with heavy Government subsidies, and then relying on its design, management and sales skills to alchemize the dross into gold.

Since the mid-1980's, Bombardier has picked up three other aircraft companies -- Canadair in Quebec, the Learjet Corporation in Kansas and Short Brothers P.L.C. in Northern Ireland. While their total cost was $250 million, they produced sales of $1.5 billion in 1990 alone. 64 Years, Many Owners

The de Havilland company, which has changed hands several times in its 64 years, bears one of the legendary names in Canadian aviation. Its Fox Moths, Otters and Beavers helped open the north, while its plywood-bodied Mosquito bombers fought in World War II.

The company was acquired by the Hawker Siddeley Group P.L.C. in the early 1960's, and when the British engineering company wound down the operation in the 1970's, Ottawa stepped in to preserve jobs and an aerospace industry base. Boeing Match in '86

During a privatization drive in 1986 by the Tory Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney, the Boeing match was made. But Boeing, which had labor problems at Downsview, later concluded that commuter aircraft did not fit into its core line of wide-bodied long-range aircraft and had had the Canadian company on the block for 18 months.

De Havilland almost returned to European ownership when a consortium, Aerospatiale S.A. of France and Alenia S.p.A. of Italy, made an offer, but the executive body of the European Community blocked the transaction in October because the consortium could become too powerful in the commuter aircraft market. The Financial Breakdown

The Canadian Government's support for the Bombardier transaction includes $260 million from Ontario and $230 million from the federal Government.

This is Bombardier's second major acquisition in Ontario in recent months. Late last month, it acquired, also with heavy subsidies, UTDC Inc., a manufacturer of mass-transit rail cars. The company, with sales of $250 million a year, has 860 workers in Thunder Bay and Kinston.

While Mr. Beaudoin, Bombardier's president, says he expects to make money from the deals, the closer commercial links between Quebec and Ontario represented by the transactions also reflect his opposition to Quebec separatism. In the Constitutional debate over Canada's future, he has contended that union is critical to the nation's economic health.